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Working on a player list.

Posted: Wed Dec 02, 2015 11:25 am
by Cihparg
Long story short, I've been working on an alternative player list to portal.arelith.com.
It offers a couple extra features, as seen below:
  • Scrying: Retrive general information about a player, such as how long they've been online, which characters they've played and when were they last seen.
    • No CD-Keys are used for finding out information.
  • Traffic: Browse through player traffic to find out when the server's the most active.
  • Chat: Open up a window to Arelith's IRC, through KiwiIRC.
  • Date: See the current UTC timestamp, used in last seen dates and others.
  • Status: See whether or not the background task is online, and can update the content on the page.

So, why the thread? Primarily so I can find out what people might find of use, what they find lacking in it and what they believe can be improved.
I could do that with the little amount of people already using it, but that'd take ages.
Which is where the general public of the forums come in use.

Having plenty points of view on it will help me improve it severely.
And so, the link is placed below this particular line:
OLD.CIH.FI/ARELITH * URL changed 24/02/2016, update ye bookmarks.
* Expect terrible performance and browser incompabilities during the few weeks (or years?) from this thread's creation, which ought to be fixed once spotted.

If you do happen to run into any issues, please contact me by Email or by Discord.

While the page is my work, it doesn't go without kudos to those that made it possible:
  • Liopia: I would say I would've never thought of providing something such as scrying and looking up player information, and so the credit for the idea of them go this way.
  • Arelith's Dev Team: Providing the necessities to make it all work, such as the API itself and working out little details to improve the general status of things.
  • Testers: You know who you are, having participated during the first stages of the page by using it, reporting issues and giving general feedback.
  • If this list seems inadequate, or is missing people, I will expand it to fill the gaps.

Disclaimer: I am not associated with Arelith's Development Team, this is a hobby project, it is not to replace any part of content provided by Arelith itself.
If you feel like supporting this regardless, I set up a Patreon page for that recently.

Re: Working on a player list.

Posted: Wed Dec 02, 2015 12:21 pm
by Elena
I am not sure what benefit comes from the scry option, more specifically: Characters people have played on.

I'm guessing it comes from the public CD-key they're using and which accounts are related to said key. Some people deliberately change their login name as it's the only possibility for players to link characters. Changing it means, the player actually wants to not let others know what characters they usually play on... so. While this does not affect me much/at all. I could see how it makes other people frown.

But it looks nice apart from that flaw :)

Re: Working on a player list.

Posted: Wed Dec 02, 2015 12:28 pm
by Cihparg
Elena wrote:...
Often times, people only remember a part of a character's name, and want to see when that particular player was online last time.

While there are negatives to it, there are also positives to it.
It more or less balances the use of it.


Ofcourse, it is possible a function could be implemented to deliberately hide information about themselves, blacklisting certain queries to avoid being found.
But, that'd have to depend on the general consensus on the matter of Scrying.

As is, I'd see such a function only negative towards progress.


And - no. No CD-Key information is used to retrieve information about players.
All information available is from caching the API extensively through the year(s).

Re: Working on a player list.

Posted: Wed Dec 02, 2015 12:36 pm
by Shadowy Reality
How can you match people's alts then? Unless you know it's the same CD-Key there is no way of knowing.

Edit: To clarify, by alts I mean alternate Bioware names.

Re: Working on a player list.

Posted: Wed Dec 02, 2015 12:43 pm
by Recite the Sins
My login returns a "null" page - I presume due to the umlaut character in it?

For reference, the login is Schrödinger's cat has joined, and yet

Re: Working on a player list.

Posted: Wed Dec 02, 2015 12:43 pm
by Cihparg
Shadowy Reality wrote:...
I would say there is no way of knowing. Even if someone creates another account, and creates a new character using an older character's name, there isn't a sureproof way of knowing the two players are the same.
You can verify that with the player in game however.
Recite the Sins wrote:...
Using the primary button, you get the right result.
Which leads me to think the optional Scry button within the Formatter isn't encoding properly.

Edit: Yup. It wasn't.
Switching function from escape() to encodeURIComponent().

If issues arise, I might just let browsers handle the encoding!

Re: Working on a player list.

Posted: Wed Dec 02, 2015 12:51 pm
by Shadowy Reality
One suggestion, for the traffic graph, allow time periods higher than 1h. Place several filters, per day, per week, per month. So it's easier to see the distribution.

Re: Working on a player list.

Posted: Wed Dec 02, 2015 12:56 pm
by grip
Cihparg, taking away people's ability to use secret alts is not cool. I don't want people to know who I've played, but don't want to use a new CD key with every character. The scry option really bums me out.

Re: Working on a player list.

Posted: Wed Dec 02, 2015 1:16 pm
by Green2Bee
I too don't like the scrying option.

I tried it on myself and it shows characters that's not even in my vault anymore.

Re: Working on a player list.

Posted: Wed Dec 02, 2015 1:24 pm
by Cihparg
Shadowy Reality wrote:...
I'll look into that, but I can't quarantee quick results.
It could take a new revision of the code.
grip wrote:...
Assuming said secret alt accounts aren't just for recreating older characters, there isn't a sureproof way of finding out who's who.
No CD-Keys are being used to find out information about you, no need to worry about that.

The only information people can use to find out about your alts, would be character names and account names.

And, as I mentioned earlier, I'm listening to input on Scry in general, and might implement a feature to hide information on demand.
Green2Bee wrote:...
That's not an awful lot to go on with, but I'm supposing it's along the same as the other comments against.

Re: Working on a player list.

Posted: Wed Dec 02, 2015 1:28 pm
by Cihparg
Added a note below Scrying to say there is in fact no system in place that takes advantage of CD-Keys, and accounts tied to them.
All information provided is from caching the API throughout the year(s).
This so, because there seemed to be a misunderstanding on how the Scrying works.

Re: Working on a player list.

Posted: Wed Dec 02, 2015 1:28 pm
by Shadowy Reality
If you use the same Bioware name for new characters you can't expect people to forget your previous ones. He's just using the provided Arelith API to create a third party tool, you don't need to use it.

If you want to remain anonymous across characters, create a new Bioware name for each of them.

Re: Working on a player list.

Posted: Wed Dec 02, 2015 1:33 pm
by Cihparg
Shadowy Reality wrote:...
To further stress the point, if you don't want to be found, create new accounts with new character names, with no resemblance to older ones.
If you create a new account, but create an older character as new there, the likelyhood for people finding out it's you is high.

People have been caching the API for a long time now. There are several ways to find out about old characters and accounts, through IRC and Web applications.

Re: Working on a player list.

Posted: Wed Dec 02, 2015 1:33 pm
by UUD-40
It doesn't see through Bioware names.

It only returns characters assigned to that particular login name - so your secret alts are safe so long as you make a new account for them. I just tested this, including with your alts that I know about, grip. You're fine.

Re: Working on a player list.

Posted: Wed Dec 02, 2015 1:47 pm
by Cihparg
UUD-40 wrote:...
I believe Shadowy Reality meant Login names, when he said Bioware names.
But yes- I don't have a special way of finding out information about people, only that the actual API provides.
I cache said content, compile it to a list and provide content based on that.

That way cutting the overhead traffic that would happen from refreshing portal.arelith.com frequently.
All traffic that occurs on my end, will not stress Arelith- it uses previously cached content.

Re: Working on a player list.

Posted: Wed Dec 02, 2015 1:55 pm
by Green2Bee
Maybe because I'm a private person, but I find it so creepy that other people can see what's in my vault, including information I don't even remember (like deleted characters). I knew when I made the comment it doesn't show alts, but even then, I guess I can't get over why it's necessary. It's so stalker-y it really makes me uncomfortable. It's one thing to know people can do this, it's another thing to let everyone do it.

Having that said, it is beautifully designed and I'm sorry my first comment was entirely negative. I was a bit shocked.

Re: Working on a player list.

Posted: Wed Dec 02, 2015 1:59 pm
by Cihparg
Green2Bee wrote:...
That's all good. Feedback is feedback, and equally as important.
Expressing yourself helps me understand what needs to be done.

Getting a consensus if people don't speak at all is rather difficult.

Re: Working on a player list.

Posted: Wed Dec 02, 2015 2:00 pm
by Kuma
I like this entire thing.

Re: Working on a player list.

Posted: Wed Dec 02, 2015 2:15 pm
by P Three
Shadowy Reality wrote:If you use the same Bioware name for new characters you can't expect people to forget your previous ones. He's just using the provided Arelith API to create a third party tool, you don't need to use it.

If you want to remain anonymous across characters, create a new Bioware name for each of them.
+1.
For example it shows all the names i have as P Three, but ONLY those.

If I look up FatesFury it shows me JUST the name I have there.

Re: Working on a player list.

Posted: Wed Dec 02, 2015 3:20 pm
by The GrumpyCat
Scrying: Retrive general information about a player, such as how long they've been online, which characters they've played and when were they last seen.
By 'Where they were last seen' Do you mean the Server? Or the Place? The latter seems... ripe for metagaming to me. 'Oh wow! Joe was in/is in Sibiyad! quick guys, let's get a gank squad there!' Or even 'Oooh, Billy the Dwarf was in the Elven Crypts.... we must prosecute him as if we know this IG!' or even 'Oooh Tommy was in the Abyssal Fortress! They must be an abyssal! Quick Jane, exile him! Exile exile exile!'

Seeing characters by log-in is probably fine, but anything else is a little dangerous imo.

I do have one request that might be useful however, if it's possible. But some information on what In Game Time it is on each server.

Re: Working on a player list.

Posted: Wed Dec 02, 2015 3:29 pm
by Orian_666
Eugh, my vault (mostly deleteled failed alts) is an absolute mess....

Re: Working on a player list.

Posted: Wed Dec 02, 2015 3:34 pm
by Cihparg
DM GrumpyCat wrote:
...
...
Server, ofcourse. The API does not provide the location in a server.
I'll see if I can work some sort of a game time system, no guarantees though!

Will have to confirm from Devteam if server time is static across resets.

Re: Working on a player list.

Posted: Wed Dec 02, 2015 6:52 pm
by yellowcateyes
Like the grumpy cat said, IC gametime would be nice. Especially for people who want to know when to log back in for their crafting project.

Re: Working on a player list.

Posted: Wed Dec 02, 2015 6:58 pm
by Green2Bee
Is it possible to script a reference period to not return a character associated with log-in based on last logged in on the list, so that it only lists active characters? I think it's TMI to show all charas but... Seeing I probably am the only one who finds that incredibly creepy...

Like, if it has been 30 days or more since that specific character had been online compared to the last log in date, not show it on the list? I think i still think it gives a lot of information about a player that really isn't warranted for everyone to know by looking at their vault of inactive and deleted characters.

Re: Working on a player list.

Posted: Wed Dec 02, 2015 7:11 pm
by Cihparg
Green2Bee wrote:...
That's more or less a thing on the rewrite for the backend I'm writing, but that might take months before it's done.

Currently focused more on frontend scripting, a rewrite for the default.js is on the way because the current one is rather DOM heavy.